Duke’s Championship and CoachK.com

I am beyond excited that Duke won it’s fourth NCAA Championship last month over a tough Butler team. What an exciting game. I’m so proud of the Duke program and their journey this season.

As many of you know, I am the Webmaster for Coach K’s Official website, CoachK.com. I thought I would share what’s been going on with his site during Duke’s Championship run.

As the tournament progressed and Duke advanced, the site traffic grew higher and higher.  The site traffic reached a peak of over 9,000 visits on the night of the championship game. On several occasions during the final four and championship weekend, the amount of traffic actually brought down the site.

CoachK.com is a WordPresss site currently hosted on a shared plan with Host Gator.  I’ve never really experienced  one of my sites going down due to the amount of traffic it was receiving. In each case, I worked with the Host Gator admins to get the site back online. In addition to their help in getting my site back online, I also received an education in caching plugins for WordPress.

Host Gator‘s tech support was responsive, professional, and very helpful. I highly recommend them as a hosting provider.

This is a great example of the value a good hosting company can provide. Where is the value in cheap or free hosting when your site has a problem and you can’t get any support? On top of their great support, Host Gator is also very inexpensive and reliable.

How to Target Gmail with Google AdWords

There’s a lot of buzz right now about a new info product that reveals a secret “backdoor” into Google advertising. The secret allows you to specifically target your ads to appear in Gmail. The idea is that while the search volume is lower for Gmail, it is highly targeted traffic and will convert at a higher rate.

The $97 info product is by Ryan Deiss and is available at GmailMindTricks.com (not an affiliate link) if you’re interested.

If you’d like to know how to make your ads appear in Gmail without spending $97, check out this YouTube video posted by Austin Lau, an Agency Media Planner at Google.

I watched the GmailMindTricks intro video but have not purchased the product. Ryan is a reputable internet marketer. Presumably the $97 product includes more than what is on the above YouTube video.

In either case, I thought the info contained in the YouTube video was worth sharing.

Have you had your ads appear in Gmail before? What has been your experience compare to “regular” AdWords?

CoachK.com Added to the WordPress Showcase

I received word this week that the CoachK.com website I designed has been added to the WordPress Showcase. I am a huge fan of WordPress. For one of my designs to be featured in their official Showcase is very exciting.

CoachK.com is the Official Website of Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski. If you haven’t seen the site, check it out at CoachK.com and vote it up over at the WordPress Showcase.

I’ve been working with Duke Basketball since 2004 and I’m very proud of  my association with Coach K and the program. The current design of the site, powered by WordPress, was launched in August 2009. Read my post about the site launch to learn more about my use of WordPress.

Brizzly Review: A Better Social Media Reader

People’s desire to stay connected is one reason why sites such as Twitter and Facebook are so popular.  One common characteristic people share is they want that connectivity to be as simple as possible.  This is where Brizzly comes in.  Brizzly is a Twitter and Facebook client that provides “a simple way to experience the social web”.

A web-based social reader, Brizzly is laid out in a way that just makes sense; it has a very simple interface and the site itself runs smoothly and seamlessly.  Once you create an account, it’s easy to find your way around the site.  There’s even a “Getting Started” video and help section to answer most of your questions. Brizzly’s usability is not an accident. Brizzly was created by some of the same people who built Google Reader.

Here are some of Brizzly’s great features:

• Twitter: Send and receive direct messages. Your direct messages are presented in a threaded conversation like format right on your main page. You can even have multiple message threads going at once. When you receive a message, you can view it or choose the “shh” option to ignore it and pull it up later.
• Twitter: View images in tweets as opposed to links.
• Twitter: Monitor up to five Twitter accounts.
• Twitter: Create groups from your Twitter followers.  Right now, you can only have 5, but Brizzly promises more in the future.
• Twitter: Support for newly introduced Twitter “Lists”.
• Twitter: The Mute feature allows you to hide a user’s updates until you decide you want to see them again.
• Twitter: The “Trends and News” feature provides an explanation as to why terms are trending on Twitter.
• Twitter: Follow and unfollow Tweeters, reply to a Tweet, repost a Tweet and save drafts.
• Twitter: Search Twitter or find people to follow. You can also save your searches.
• Facebook: Update your status, wall posts and comments.
• Short URLs are shown in their full form on Brizzly.

Currently in closed beta, Brizzly is open to users by invitation only.  You can request an invite on the Brizzly homepage or ask a friend who already has an account. Another way to “get in” is to do a Twitter search for “Brizzly invitation”.

The addition of Facebook support is a huge step forward in Brizzly’s development. No longer simply just a Twitter Reader, Brizzly is now a Social Media Reader providing a simple, more streamlined way to monitor these two leading sites. I highly suggest you check it out. Brizzly’s fantastic features will greatly enhance your social media experience.

What are some of your favorite social media applications?

CoachK.com Redesign Launched

I’m proud to announce the launch of the redesigned CoachK.com website. CoachK.com is the Official Website of Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski. The site has been redesigned and updated to provide easier site navigation and incorporate database technology to automate content management, site navigation and more.

The new design, shown below, replaces the original look launched in April, 2004. Advances in web technology over the past five years along with the site’s growth (over 300 pages) made the redesign necessary. In addition, I wanted to give the site a cleaner,  more modern look. Having worked closely with Duke’s athletic department on the site’s development, I am thrilled with the result.

Some of the new website features include:

• rotating flash banner ad for featured stories
• redesigned “Share Your Story” feature allowing fans to share their Coach K stories
• site search
• added social bookmarking icons to promote sharing of information
• dynamic menus and site navigation
• a number of other back-end enhancements

The new site is powered by WordPress . I’ve done a lot of work with WordPress lately and love the ease of use and flexibility it offers.

Check out the new CoachK.com website and let me know what you think.

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